Jane Goodall: Urgent Action Needed to Save Chimps

Jane Goodall, pictured here, made a series of groundbreaking discoveries about chimps that made us rethink how unique humans really are when compared with the rest of the animal kingdom.

Credit: The Jane Goodall Institute/Hugo van Lawick.

Reflecting on a half-century of pioneering research on chimpanzees,
legendary scientist Jane Goodall has called for urgent action to save
our closest living relatives from extinction in the wild.

"The survival of chimpanzees requires a dramatic change to how we
think about the natural world, as well as advances in science and
technology," Goodall wrote in an opinion article published in the July
8 issue of the journal Nature.

In the years since Goodall first set foot
in what is now Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park on July 14, 1960,
she made a series of groundbreaking discoveries about chimps. She
helped discover how they could make tools, how they could hug, kiss and tickle each other, and how they also had a darker side to their natures, engaging in infanticide,
cannibalism and war. These stunning findings not only revolutionized
our ideas regarding our closest living relatives, but also made us
rethink how unique humans really are when compared with the rest of the
animal kingdom.

However, as knowledge about chimpanzees grew over the years, so have
threats to their existence, Goodall noted. While there were more than 1
million chimpanzees in Africa in 1900, now fewer than 300,000 remain in
the wild, and some conservationists fear they will become extinct in
the wild within 30 years.

Several years after she first landed in Gombe, deforestation on a
huge scale transformed the 13.5 square miles (35 square kilometers) of
wilderness Goodall explored into an island of forest surrounded by bare
land. In addition to this loss of habitat, chimps are also vulnerable
to human diseases such as polio and the flu. Compounding these threats,
chimp numbers have declined because of illegal bushmeat hunting,

These threats aren't unique to Gombe; they also threaten chimpanzees in other parts of Africa.

"I am finding the same sorts of problems in Senegal," said
primatologist Jill Pruetz of Iowa State University in Ames who, like
many researchers of chimps, cites Goodall as one of their heroes. "One
of the biggest threats they face is large-scale mining — something that
stems mainly from the so-called developed world's great need for things
like automobile parts."

Seeking to make a difference

For more than 15 years, Jane Goodall's institute has worked to
improve the lives of people who live near chimpanzees. Addressing the
problems of these villagers — such as poverty, drought and erosion
caused by unsustainable farming methods, and a lack of basic needs such
as clean water, health care and education — can in turn help them in
aiding the endangered apes.

"We need to give people, particularly those who live alongside our
closest relatives, good reasons to preserve them," Goodall wrote in the
opinion piece.

"We must work together with people that live alongside chimps,"
Pruetz said, agreeing with Goodall and her colleague Lilian Pintea. "We
are asking them to give up a lot in some respects, compared to the
typical rate of consumption we Westerners exhibit, and these same
people are often considered to be stressed for resources themselves."

Basic research also highlights the importance of chimps in the ecosystems that people themselves rely on.

"Part of the scientific research we do at Fongoli [in Senegal] is
studying the chimps' diet and specifically their dispersal of important
plants in the area," Pruetz said. "For example, seeds of a very
important vine species for chimps and humans — humans gather the fruit
and sell it to markets in the capitol, and it is one of the few ways
that women can bring in cash on their own — germinate more quickly and
successfully once they pass through the chimp gut. People are quick to
recognize the value that chimps have in terms of ecosystem health in
this way, and hunters and other people who spend a lot of time out 'in
the bush' are quick to point this out."

Technology and conservation

Satellite imagery, in combination with remote sensing data and
decades of aerial photos, is yielding valuable insights into chimpanzee
life to better figure out how to protect them. For instance, vegetation
maps helped show that chimpanzees are more likely to hunt successfully
in woodland and semi-deciduous forest than in evergreen forest, helping
focus efforts to conserve prime chimp habitats.

These projects can also help benefit people as well — for example,
restoring habitats on steep slopes helped prevent soil erosion that was
muddying water quality.

Recent satellite pictures suggest that deforestation is finally
beginning to slow at Gombe, though Goodall still stresses the need to
protect our closest primate kin.

"There is no time to waste," Goodall said. "Yet the marvelous
advances in science and conservation practices over the past five
decades gives me hope."

"If she has hope, then I think I can too. And it is very difficult
at times!" Pruetz told Our Amazing Planet. "It takes a lot of funds to
do the things that need to be done — improving the conditions of people
living alongside apes."

Charles Q. Choi is a contributing writer for Live Science and Space.com. He covers all things human origins and astronomy as well as physics, animals and general science topics. Charles has a Master of Arts degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia, School of Journalism and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Florida. Charles has visited every continent on Earth, drinking rancid yak butter tea in Lhasa, snorkeling with sea lions in the Galapagos and even climbing an iceberg in Antarctica.